Milan Records today Jim Williams' score for Titane. The movie is a horror film that centres on a woman who was involved in a car accident when she was little. To save her life a titanium plate was fitted into her head. Now, years later the lasting effects of her injury and surgery are slowly coming to light...

Jim Williams's score for Titane is technically interesting, but it's certainly not a soundtrack I would voluntarily purchase to listen to outside of the movie. Atmospheric and slightly eerie it might be, but there's nothing here strong enough to allow it to stand on its own two feet - which it was obviously never designed to do.

Talking about the soundtrack, Williams says: "The score for Titane grows from a short theme for a scene where the protagonist leaves home in startling circumstances. Initially in a contemporary popular music style with a tinge of John Barry, later this was set with metal percussion and male voice choir using the Neapolitan Minor for a scene set in a car. As the film develops the theme takes on an emotional, darker twist."

I've been a Barry fan for decades and I struggled to find anything even remotely Barry-esque here. In fact I found very little that would draw me back again. As I said, technically this is intriguing, but I found little here that caught my attention on an sort of emotional level.

The score also includes Lisa Abbott’s rendition of the folk song 'Wayfaring Stranger' as well as two additional tracks by Titane sound supervisor Séverin Favriau - these are more soundscapes of electronic sounds than they are themes in any way, shape or form.

A rather dull and lifeless collection of pieces that are best heard in the movie.

3

Darren Rea